Apple stayed true to the theme of the event and focused its presentation strictly to software, adding a collection of new features—some exciting and some a long time coming.

Today at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, Apple debuted a whole host of features for OS X 10.10 Yosemite and iOS 8. It was yet another session of the tech behemoth's annual Worldwide Developers Conference and, at least this year, it seemed there was more news for developers to be enthusiastic over than regular Apple users. Yosemite and iOS 8 is available now as a beta for registered developers, while the rest of the public can snag the smartphone operating system when it's released in the fall. Here are all the things you need to know about the newest tricks in Apple's latest software.

More From Popular Mechanics

OS X 10.10 Yosemite

Design and Notifications

True with every new OS iteration, Apple applies their own design flair by adding a few tweaks to the existing UI. The jump to iOS 6 to iOS 7 was a big one for Apple's mobile devices last year—at least from a design perspective—and the company continues many of the same ideas from iOS 7 with Yosemite. Icons get a flatter design, the dock gets an encompassing frosted look, and windows crafted with what Apple's Craig Federighi calls "translucent materials."

Apple has also introduced a Dark Mode for Pro users who might be distracted by bright menus and docks, says Federighi. This feature simply changes Apple's whitish-gray menu bar to a translucent black.

Notifications also adds a "Today" events tab, bringing Google Now-type functionality to the desktop notifications menu, which integrates with select third-party apps such as SportsCenter or eBay.

Spotlight and Safari

Spotlight now sports a Windows Alfred-esque launcher. When you click on the familiar magnifying glass icon, a new field pops open in the middle of the display. The search function now filters through limited web sites such as Wikipedia, Maps, Bing, and top websites (whatever that means) as well as local documents on your laptop.

Keeping with the theme of the event, Federighi took a moment to search "Yosemite" with the all-new spotlight function. With only four characters typed, Spotlight provided a wikipedia entry, recent news, maps of the area, as well as any related local documents, PDFs, and spreadsheets.

The biggest addition to Safari is its smart search field additions, which attaches your favorite websites right under the search bar when typing. Also, search brings in small thumbnails from the website, such as Wikipedia, to give a better idea of what you're searching.

Mail

Mail also gets its frosted glass overhaul along with a few tweaks both big and small. "We really focused on the basics," Federighi says, "Reliable syncing, fast switching between mailboxes, [and] quick fetches of your new mail." Apple tries to tackle the frustrating dilemma of trying to send large attachments, whether photos or videos, via email. Their answer is with MailDrop. Essentially, MailDrop separates your attachment from your email and sends an encrypted message to the cloud and reassembles the message after its traveled through the recipient's server. However, this only works flawlessly with Mac-to-Mac communication. If you're using another client, the attachments are available through a secure download. Those attachments can be upwards of five gigabytes.

Continuity

One of the more impressive ideas from WWDC 2014, Continuity ties together the user experience across all devices even more tightly. These functions are basically a thumbs up from Apple to its millions of user who've bought into the company's user experience wholesale. One function, named Handoff, creates an ecosystem in which all devices are in concert with one another via Wi-Fi. Although Federighi creepily described it as your devices "know[ing] what you're doing," the idea is if you start one function on an iPad, it's easy to switch among devices with the touch of a button. For example, if you're in the middle of an email on your iPhone, you can walk up to your Mac laptop or desktop and a small icon will pop up in the dock asking if you'd like to continue your email on your desktop. This function also works in reverse.

This constant communication also makes establishing a hotspot between your iPhone and Macbook much easier. When searching for Wi-Fi connections, if your iPhone is in range, it will automatically register your device under possible connections.

Of course, this increased connection between your iPhone and Macbook means sharing communication functions as well. For example, in Yosemite users can access texts sent via SMS in the Messages app. But as Federighi excitingly told a crowd of 6,000 developers, you can also use this function with phone calls. If your iPhone is tucked away in a bag or in another room, caller ID will pop up on your desktop. You can then answer the call on your Macbook and use your laptop as a speaker phone.

These additions stand to serve two purposes. For one, they help enhance productivity with a growing number of users who must balance their digital life across several devices. And two, these features are only possible within Apple's stable of products, further entrenching customers into their ecosystem.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

iOS 8

Native Apps

Interactive notifications will now be baked into iOS 8. That means, for instance, when a message pops up on your phone, you can pull it down and quickly reply to the text, without ever exiting the app you were using when you got the text. Calendar notifications are similarly actionable: Get notified on your lock screen, swipe to respond. Or, on Facebook, like a photo or pen a comment right from the home screen. Another tiny improvement: Double-tapping your home screen now gives you access to recent apps and contacts.

Mail has also gained a tiny but convenient feature: If you're in the middle of writing an email but need to check on another message, you can swipe down to minimize it, then swipe back up when you're ready to continue writing.

More From Popular Mechanics

Apple's keyboard in iOS 8 now boasts a feature called QuickType, which uses an algorithm to predict not only words, but phrases and entire sentences. Looks like Apple has finally caught up with SwiftKey and other Android keyboard alternatives. But hopefully, the new feature won't annihilate those hilarious autocorrect scenarios.

Messages

Apple may have just rendered GroupMe useless, adding a bunch of new features to its group threads. Now you can name the threads, add or remove people from a conversation, or turn off notifications for a thread for hours at a time using a handy "Do Not Disturb" mode.

In iOS 8, Apple also makes it much easier to sidestep the actual purpose of your phone: making calls. Using a "Details" button, the new OS lets you instantly share your location with family or friends. You can also use your iPhone as a kind of walkie talkie—tap the microphone to record an audio message, and when you receive one, you can simply hold up the phone to your ear and respond. When you lower your phone, the app shoots that verbal note right over to your partner.

Video messages now work in a SnapChat-esque way. You can choose to keep the media you receive, but if you don't, they'll "autodestruct" automatically, freeing up precious storage space on your phone.

Kits

Kits abounded at this year's WWDC, but the most interesting ones were HealthKit, HomeKit, and CloudKit. HealthKit was one feature that had been earlier predicted; it's a framework that lets developers and health providers use your iOS device to send and receive your health data. Users can set which apps are permitted to integrate this information. There's also a new Apple app called Health, which is the interface that contains and displays a user's health data.

HomeKit, another feature we heard rumors of, lets users tap into their iPhones to securely pair with and control smart home gadgets from various manufacturers. Then, users can utilize Siri to manipulate these connected devices.

CloudKit, on the other hand, is clearly targeted at developers. It adjusts the data assigned to a certain app based on its number of users.

Photos

Apple redid photos in iOS 8 and crucially made adjustments to how they are handled in the cloud. Now every photo you take is synced with iCloud, then appears on every iOS device you own. It will cost you, but not a lot: You get 20 GB at $0.99 a month. If you insist on using the free storage Apple offers, you'll be limited to 5 GB.

App Store

More good news for developers: Now, Apple lets devs sell apps in bundles for a discount, add video previews for the benefit of potential buyers, and offer a beta testing service called Testflight. Users get a nifty feature, too: A new Explore tab lets them search for trending apps to help them quickly find what they're searching for.

Extensibility

Apple announced the addition of 4,000 new developer APIs, one of which is called Extensibility. In iOS 8, apps can infiltrate other apps to add services and features. For instance, you can look up a page in Safari written in a foreign language, and have Bing translate that site into English. Third-party apps also get the ability to exist in widget form within your Notification Center.

Speaking of Apple opening up to third-party apps, TouchID can now be leveraged to identify a user in any non-native app. And Apple has finally allowed systemwide third-party keyboards, a much-desired feature since Android users have been able to use them on their smartphones. Swype, specifically, was demo'ed onstage, so expect to see that app installed on many iPhones soon.

Swift

Arguably the biggest announcement at the event, however, was the introduction of a brand new development platform called Swift, which replaces Objective C as Apple's native app language. It's faster than both Objective C and Python, and so efficient that it can reduce four or five lines of code to one. The guide to the programming language is already available on iBooks, so developers hoping to create the next Flappy Bird can study up now.